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Saturday, May 14, 2011

Juice Fasting

I know I have been MIA- working night shift does that to you. But today I have come out of my dark dungeon, for one night at least. Tomorrow night it's back to working night shift, but there is an end in sight: four days off next week.

Next weekend is the half marathon that I have been training for. I've gotten up to ten miles twice and ran it in great time (for me), but then discovered some sad news. The person I was going to run the race with is having some health problems and is unable to run. I know I could technically drive 10 hours to run the race by myself, but what's the fun in that. The whole reason I was going to go up North to run was so that we could run it together, otherwise I would have just ran one down here by myself. There is a silver lining in this cloud. Even though the race is off, now I have four days off work and nowhere to go! Perfect timing for a juice fast!

Years ago when I was in college, my Dad had a doctor design a 7 day juice fast for him. Each day was a different fruit or vegetable juice and each day you drank only that juice and sipped on distilled water. It looked something like this:
Day 1: Apples
Day 2: Pineapple
Day 3: Lemons
Day 4: Carrots and celery
Day 5: Beets
Day 6: Greens
Day 7: Distilled Water

On the 8th day, you had raw vegetables and a cup of brown rice throughout the day as you eased your body back into real food. My parents did this fast together and said they felt great. Each fruit or vegetable is designed to detox a different organ. For instance, pineapples for the stomach, apples for the intestines, beets for the heart. This sounded great to me, and I talked about it with Dad at length. The next time we got together, my parents surprised me with a very nice present: my first juicer. I went home armed with the papers on the fast and my new juicer, determined to have a successful fast.

Upon starting my fast, a couple things were made quite obvious to me right away. First, while my parents had each other to lean on, I had no one. I was living with two college roommates and they had to eat, so they were cooking dinner and eating Chipotle in front of me, and that made it was very hard to stay strong. I ended up on the phone with my Dad several times a day doubting my will power and expressing my desire to eat food.
The second obstacle in my path was the fact that I was working full time at the hospital. My parents didn't work, exercise, or do anything strenuous during their fast, as instructed by the doctor. During a fast it's most important to relax, do some light walking or yoga, and rest. I was on my feet at the hospital from 8-5 five days a week because I was doing my preceptorship.
The third thing was how much I juiced (or, didn't). Being a poor college student and not getting paid to do my preceptorship, each quarter I was living off the leftover pennies of my student loan. One time when I went to the grocery story to get my veggies for the day, I got one pineapple and a few lemons. Looking back, I wasn't consuming enough calories, which is probably why I was so hungry. My Dad said I should not have ever felt hungry. He said to juice a lot, and all throughout the day, and whenever you feel hungry.

So looking back and seeing the things I would change, I think now is the perfect time to do another fast. I have a partner to do it with, I have the time off work, and I have the funds to buy enough produce so I don't starve my face off. It's also best to do a fast during the warm months, which it is now. So while I'm sad I won't be running the half marathon, I'm excited for the opportunity to be able to do this. So far this Spring I have been traveling, traveling, traveling and working. It will be so nice to take a weekend to re-focus, rejuvenate, and relax. I also want to do it because I feel like I have slowly been eating more salty food, processed food, and sugary food. Add a few alcoholic beverages in the mix every now and then and you get one awful-feeling body! I would love a cleanse and have been wanting to do one for months now but haven't had the consecutive days off work.

The only question I have now is which juice fast to do. Like I said, the last one I did was seven days long, and I only have four days this time.

Have you ever done a juice fast? Do you recommend it? Is it online so I can look it up? Or do you remember it? Any help on this would be greatly appreciated. My other option is to choose a few days from the above fast and just leave out the rest. (I can tell you right now which days I would cut out, and it would be greens and distilled water day!) Green smoothies are delicious, green juice is nastier than dirt.

25 comments:

Sorry about your friend and missing the half marathon, good one for doing a juice fast! I have never been able too, to addicted to cooking... maybe one day, when I will be by myself, without a family to cook for :-).

you could get the 'raw food detox diet' book from the library and do one she suggests? Most of the time she suggests having a very small meal, salad or small veggie plus grain meal at the end of the day though I suppose you could just add another juice. They are usually 3 days.

When are you starting?? I was thinking of doing 3-4 days starting tomorrow, Sunday.....Green/Carrot/Beet/Cucumber/Apple Juice Mix. Juice in morning for whole day. I SUCK at juice feasting. But just today I got all the produce for it!!

I don't detox with it but enjoy a green smoothie almost every single night after dinner time. The nutritional value rests inside of me as I sleep for my internal organs to party. http://chucky-thefatvegetarian.blogspot.com/2011/04/tiffanys-green-smoothie-updated-and.html

My juicer has retired since purchasing the Blendtec. We now "juice" the entire fruit (stem, seed, core, rind, etc.).

based on the looks of you, juice fasting may not be your best option. you stand to lose weight that you don't really have to lose. instead, consider adding a daily juice as your breakfast. it's what i do and it's spectacular as far as daily detox goes. this morning was cucumber/celery/romaine/wheatgrass/lemon...after drinking it i am bouncing off the walls. my blog has some cleanse and detox ideas as well, check it out! :)

I'm sorry your having to miss the half marathon, but love that you are going to do a juice fast. I've done a 3 day juice fast before, but it was several years ago, and I about starved to death, because I did the same thing as you. I've been wanting to do a 7 day fast myself, since I also now have a juicer. :o) I haven't done a lot of research as to how I want to do it yet, but the one your dad did sounds great. I've always heard after the 3rd day it gets easier. Let me know what you decide to do. :o)

Michele, it's official. You are the sweetest person ever! I just posted about why I haven't been blogging lately. I've just been super busy with school. I have been reading all of your posts though! I just haven't had any time to comment, even though I have been wanting to.

I hope your juice fast makes you feel wonderful! It sounds like the perfect way to start the summer :)

Bummer about the race! That will definitely be nice to have so much time to yourself, though! I love long weekends like that.

I have never done a juice fast. I have heard conflicting things about them, and I am worried about screwing up my metabolism... I think everyone needs to listen to their own body, and if a juice fast feels right & energizes them, that's awesome! I did a cleanse in January, which followed the eating plan detailed in the book "Crazy Sexy Diet" - and I LOVED it. It was basically no sugar, gluten, caffeine, or processed foods, with lots of raw foods, green juices, green smoothies, etc. Basically trading bad habits for good habits. :) I have been trying to work the principles of that plan back into my life, since I went a little sugar crazy over the past couple months, and I already feel so much better! Spring is such a great time to overhaul our diets & clean out the junk.

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Everything in this blog is my opinion based on my own personal research and life experience. I do have a bachelors of science in nursing degree but am not a medical doctor.Information in this blog is for informational purposes only and shouldn't take precedence over medical advice.